Here's some irony for you...
The ONE THING that a grid-tie setup DOESN'T do is that it will NOT produce power from the solar panels during a blackout.
I was working super-early today, with the upside being that I was back home at 10:30 AM. I noticed that it the streets were all wet when I got back home. Sure enough, a thunderstorm had rolled through the area and knocked out the power.
My house was in a blackout, and my solar panels were NOT producing power.
But that's okay. Watch the video to see why.